"On Wednesday, 213,900 concerned citizens petitioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi to introduce a proposed Road Transport and Safety Bill, which suggests sweeping changes to make India’s roads safer, in the current Parliament session.

The Bill proposes a new authority with powers to formulate and ensure implementation of vehicle recall policies, as well as impose safety standards, such as mandatory crash tests and imposition of fines for engineering defects in vehicles. Besides, it seeks to make the licensing process more transparent — with automatic tests, push for greater electronic enforcement, compulsory seat belts, standards on visibility and safe distance, among other measures.

The man behind the signature campaign that led to the petition was Piyush Tewari.

The NGO got the support of actor (and now a Bharatiya Janata Party member of Parliament) Kirron Kher, who also moved a private member’s Bill on the issue.

Tewari was also irked by the fact that the current Motor Vehicles Act was out of sync with the needs of safety and required a new legislative framework. He says: “I discovered, to my shock, that the Act allowed goods carriers to protrude rods by up to one metre, and permitted states under it to increase the limit. So, in Goa, for example, the limit is two metres.”

Through a right to information (RTI) plea, SaveLIFE received data that revealed as many as 9,800 deaths in India in 2012 happened because of protruding rods. The NGO decided to again intervene legally, by filing a public-interest suit in the Supreme court. And, in March this year, the clause allowing protruding rods was stuck down. But Tewari agrees the challenge has begun only now, as the law’s enforcement, in practice, is more of an exception than a rule.

Therefore, the NGO has strongly advocated more electronic surveillance, so that human intervention in enforcement is reduced. Many say it is expensive and the government does not have the money. Tewari calls that argument bunkum. To illustrate, he cites data based on Delhi’s ITO intersection, one of the busiest in the city. There were 140 million violations at this intersection in a month but the number of vehicles fined was less than 7,000. A foolproof surveillance system for the intersection, with four cameras, would require only about Rs 48 lakh, which the police could more than make up for, through the manifold increase in challans.

Tewari says auto companies do not like a new authority being vested with powers on recall, which they want to remain voluntary and left to their will. Also, they do not want standards for safety in vehicles — like crash testing— to be imposed. To deflect attention, they argue prices of vehicles like cars will go up 15-20 per cent if these standards are followed. They are exaggerating, Tewari argues, as the price for an airbag was only Rs 3,000. And, while safety could not come for free, the cost involved is not too big, either. “If a consumer has to pay an extra Rs 20,000 on a car worth Rs 4 lakh, especially when he or she is paying the bill through equated monthly instalments, we don’t think anyone will have a problem in paying,” he says.

He also says the cost of safety, like in other countries, has to be shared among consumers, automobile companies and the government.

Obviously, regional transport offices also fear their discriminatory powers in giving licences and registering vehicles will go away with automation. A Transparency International study has estimated that vehicles in India pay Rs 22,000 crore annually as bribe on highways alone.

Full article here.